Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-06
THE MARKET PLACE, THE WATER FUND
AND THE BONDR0LDERS.

THE MARKET PLACE, THE WATER FUND
AND THE B0NDHoLDERs.
The defeat of the market proposition
will not discourage the friends of progress
in Sacramento. They will adopt the old
advice, ''pick the flint and try again"
China slough is to remain with US yet
awhile and the Chinese landlords will con-
tinue to collect rents upon a parcel of
rookeries along its border, which would
disgrace the vilest quarter of the filthiest
city of Europe.
1t is gratifying to know that the popular
vote was for progress and Improvement,
since there were 75S more votes for the
market-place scheme than against, out of
1885 votes cast. But as the law requires
a two-thirds vote to levy a special tax, the
popular expression cannot now prevail The
enemies of the proposition, therefore, have
nothing Of which to boast, for it remains
that, even in so small a vote as that of
yesterday, progressive ideas had the large
majority of 758 votes. When it comes,
therefore, to a square Issue, the non-pro-
gressionists will be overwhelmingly out
voted, and that time is very near at hand
Unquestionably the decision of the Su-
prone Court adverse to the city concern
ing the water works acted injuriously to
to the sentiment in favor of the market
proposition. Without that as a factor in
Yesterdays fight, the market place would
have been ordered
Which undeniable fact suggests the
thought that the policy of litigation with
the city's creditors has resulted directly
contrary to the loud-mouthed and conf
dent prophecies Of the advocates Of litiga-
ton. The city has made this progress by
it, only, that it is settled that her Funded
Debt Commission shall not be crowded
from the paying teller's desk on interest
day, and that the city cannot be sued upon
the bonds. But this is because, as the
Judge who rendered the decision subse-
quently remarked, the bondholders have
another means of making the city pay, and
they have been applying it with merci-
less rigor, compelling the levy of the tax
and the paying over Of more than half
of it.
The time was when the debt might
have been refunded or settled upon basis
of from 80 to 81 cents on the dollar. Those
true friends of the city, however, who had
no faith in lawsui:-fighting, and advised
adjustment at a heavy discount on the
bonds, and at lower rate of interest, were
denounced as enemies to the city and the
advocates of the bondholders. Time and
the Courts have settled the dispute, and
justified the policy urged by those who be-
heved that the city would be beaten, as it
has been, and bonds advanced to nearly
face value. The only people who have
profited by the years of litigation are the
lawyers and the bondholders. Had the
latter mapped out plan in their own in
terest they could not have been better
served than they have been by those who
urged the city to litigate. 1t checked the
party urging refunding and the creditors
asked nothing better Aside from the
effort to cripple the Funded Debt Com
mission-than which the city has no more
helpful agency, and which should never
have found assailants among those in
whose interests it was erected-we have to
credit to the litigation policy, the defeat of
the progressive measure to fill the slough,
give the city new and needed frontage, and
remove the nuisances that are constant
menaees to the prosperity of the com
munity
Sacramento's credit is good at home and
abroad. The bondholders want no better
security; nay, they aver that they are
ready to lend any amount of money to the
city. For Sacramento is prosperous, grow
ing, thriving and has before her the fair
est and most promising future, and upon it
her creditors are willing to speculate and
make more of investments. What the city
needs now is to apply business wisdom to
this matter; She has had enough of law
and lawyers and litigation and fee paying.
1t has all ended where it began, that the
bondholders get their money, and the city
IS compelled to pay the forfeit of her
bond and foot the bills of costs besides.
Fortunately she is able to do it, and will
presently rid herself of the debt and go on
with such progressive schemes as yester-
day met defeat, because of decision passing
over the waterworks fund to the tender
mercieS of bondholders.